


Only Happy When It Rains

by VIII (Valkyrien)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bikesheds Exist Solely For Teenagers To Get Up To Sordid Things Behind, F/M, Happy Shipweek Everybody Let's Kick Off With Some Teenage Angst, Rickon Stark Comes Home From Reform School A New Man, The Old Song Says Good Girls Go To Heaven And Bad Girls Go Everywhere, Turns Out Good Girls Go Wherever They Like But All The Best Women Are Already At Reform School, UK Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:21:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8128457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkyrien/pseuds/VIII
Summary: Catelyn and Ned Stark despair of their youngest child's refusal to conform to the standards laid down by his siblings and ship him off to reform school.The Rickon who comes home is different, but not in the way they wanted him to be. For one thing, he doesn't come home by choice but because his parents force him to. He also doesn't come home to them. In fact, he can't bear to be within the same postcode as them.Instead, Rickon holes up in Arya and Gendry's spare room, his existentialist crisis fueled by the apathy which accompanies thwarted dreams, and tortured 80's metal ballads.Turns out reform school is where inhibitions go to die. No wonder it's also where to find the really special girls.





	1. Pour Your Misery Down On Me

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Rickeen Shipweek everyone!

 

 

 

   It's a chilly day, grey and about as miserable as he is most of the time, now, thick spattering drizzle coming down hard enough to rattle the roof and windows, and all it does is remind him of Skagos where it was always cold and bloody grim and the skies opened on the regular in a way that meant business, but more than that, it reminds him of her, because he's spent all night dreaming of her again, and waking up to a morning not unlike the one they met on adds insult to injury.

 

 

   'Met' is not perhaps the best word to describe the way he ducked out of morning assembly his first proper day at Skagos and hid behind the bike sheds - that turned out to be ludicrously misnamed since there wasn't a single bike in any of them - choosing to brave the slush instead of sitting through the daily reading of the riot act he'd been told to expect, which would surely only compound the reality of having been sent away to the arse-crack of the country and a sodding _reform school_ of all things meant to be his penance for not being nearly enough like his siblings.

 

 

   That wasn't a grey day though, not like this, it was stormy, and so were her eyes when she squeezed in behind the shed next to him, looked him over and said,

 

 

   “ _Avoiding assembly?_ ” and he'd barely had time to react beyond gaping at her before she casually continued,

 

 

   “ _Me too. Fancy a snog?_ ”

 

 

   Rickon remembers how her eyes were storm-blue and her skin cloud-pale and her hair was slick-slate black and the scar on her face was as much a mystery as her proposition and he spent a little too long processing both, because she narrowed her eyes and snapped at him when all he managed was an unintelligent, incoherent sound, and only when she did to the tune of,

 

 

   “ _Well, have it your way then, gods, it was just a suggestion,_ ” did he regain his faculties enough to be able to tell her,

 

 

   “ _It's a brilliant suggestion, I'm sorry - yes please!_ ”

 

 

   “ _What, really?_ ” he remembers her demanding, disbelieving and ready to leave, suspicious, and he nodded so hard even the memory makes his neck twinge, blabbing,

 

 

   “ _Yes, really, please - I didn't mean to stare at you like a tit, I thought you were joking - but if you weren't that'd be - I'd really like that._ ”

 

 

   Suspicion became appraisal easily, and when the magic words,

 

 

   “ _Go on then,_ ” fell from her lips and she pressed them to his, he forgot all about the wet and the fact that he'd been forcibly sent to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere because his family couldn't be arsed to deal with him anymore.

 

 

   He forgot about everything except the girl in his arms until the bell announcing the end of assembly was struck across the yard and she pulled away and told him as coolly as she'd let him kiss her for the past hour or so,

 

 

   “ _I'm Shireen,_ ” and even then he only had two things in his head, and the first was to tell her,

 

 

   “ _You're amazing. I'm Rickon,_ ” and the second was the idle thought that this was not how he'd ever imagined his first proper kiss would play out but he had no regrets and it seemed quite obvious now, really.

 

 

   “ _Assembly is a waste of time,_ ” she said, and he was inclined to agree, except had it not been for assembly he wouldn't have spent the last hour-ish being thoroughly initiated into the fine art of snogging by a very attractive girl, so he had half a mind to make peace with the existence of assembly as a concept, and half a mind was all he could spare anyway after having her pressed against him for that long.

 

 

   “ _Do we have them every day?_ ” he remembers asking hazily, fairly certain to this day that he'd been told before but also fairly certain that the information had never registered as worthy of retaining and in any case he wouldn't have done in that situation, but better than that he recalls the throb of anticipation that went through him when she told him with an almost-smile,

 

 

   “ _See you tomorrow, Rickon,_ ” that carried him through the rest of the day and sent him ducking out of that next and every following morning's assembly to hide behind the sheds with Shireen and have his faith in there being a point to life reaffirmed daily and with increasing persuasion.

 

 

   Nothing these days does, and it'd be pointless anyway, because he's no faith left in anything but life and the people in it consistently proving to be utter shite.

 

 

   Mornings are just an unavoidable evil these days, occasionally heralded by the scent of the 6 AM bacon butty Gendry starts the day with on mornings when he has time and he and Arya don't shag it away, but there's never any bacon left after he's been at it anyway, so there's no use getting up just for that.

 

 

   Today is not a bacon butty day.

 

 

   That's why there's a note in the fridge that says ' **GET BACON** '.

 

 

   Rickon assumes Arya couldn't be arsed to add ' **AND MILK** ' even though there is also a complete lack of that, which he notices only after having otherwise completed all the necessary steps to provide himself with a morning cuppa.

 

 

   Now that there's no milk for it, the steaming mug of steeping tea just seems like a mocking allegory for his life - unfulfilled and useless - but without it he might as well abandon today entirely, and at least a milk-and-bacon run will lend some shallow purpose to continued existence, if only briefly, so he goes for his jacket and heads outside where sure enough the gutter deposits a nice wodge of water directly down the back of his neck to welcome him back into active service as a human being.

 

 

   Rickon doesn't even bother to swear at it.

 

 

   Life now is just a series of irritations that only break for tedium and the odd major inconvenience, and trying to resist it is as futile as the pursuit of anything more or better, and in any case he's too fucking exhausted and disappointed with the whole bloody thing to try.

 

 

   It wasn't like that before, but that was nothing to do with him. That was all her. The unexpected miracle of every day being a new discovery, a fresh delight, that was all down to her. Life was, for a brief and shining moment in time, a delicious ebb and flow of informed anticipation and undiluted joys separated only by a longing towards what a new day would bring that was almost as sweet as what it did.

 

 

   Every day a new experience, something more and wonderful to learn - not in school, which was mostly dull as - but with Shireen. Seeing another dawn felt purposeful then - getting out of bed in the morning was more a leap and bound, worth it for all the things that were possible.

 

 

   The morning Rickon learnt that the black wool covering her legs all the way up way past the hem of her skirt was never a pair of tights at all but very, very long socks pulled right up almost to the top of her thighs where they met the curve of her arse, it was raining cats and dogs and half of it ended up down the back of Rickon's neck and it didn't matter in the slightest.

 

 

   He doesn't even remember what the weather was like the morning he learnt that despite the thick black wool socks, the soft skin of Shireen's thighs was always chilled except for the unbelievable heat at their junction.

 

 

   Probably terrible, the weather at Skagos always was, but Rickon never cared about precipitation when he had his head under Shireen's skirt, and soggy, muddy knees were never really a concern on those mornings either.

 

 

   After that, starting the day with a cup of tea seems a bit of a piss-take really. You sort of lose the will to even bother with cornflakes when you used to be a true initiate of the real breakfast of champions.

 

 

   Even the prospect of a bit of bacon starts to seem lack-lustre, a poor man's placebo for the really good things in life, like the double-gasp that used to herald Shireen's eventually daily confirmation that Rickon is not a consummate failure at all but actually something of a rare talent, at least in one respect.

 

 

   It might not be the kind of thing you could put on your CV and expect to have taken seriously, but he'd much rather be good at that than say, have a maths A-level.

 

 

   These days he's lucky if he can even get his bike to start on the first go.

 

 

   Today it takes him three attempts, and it definitely doesn't sound as sweet as she used to.

 

 

   He narrowly misses being winged by some tosser in an Audi trying to illegally overtake a Volvo on his way and he can't even summon the fire to flip him off for not bothering to check his mirrors before deciding to be an arsehole, but in the end he makes it into town in one piece and the incident is so depressingly mundane that he's not even angry about it.

 

 

   He chains up his bike and crosses the parking lot and walks right into a plume of smoke exhaled by a dark-haired woman and it hits him south of the belt with the memory of Shireen, leaving him with a kiss one morning and the whisper of,

 

 

   “ _What number are you in?_ ” and his own response a stammer because the very idea of seeing her later or in anything but one-hour increments behind a bike shed before nine in the morning was all-consuming, as was the way she just left without confirming that she wanted to know for any reason at all, and Rickon recalls the agony of waiting and hoping all day, of sitting up at his desk well after lights-out staring grainily at homework he never intended to do until finally she slipped through the door and looked around briefly and then asked, soft despite the brashness of the words themselves,

 

 

   “ _Fancy a shag?_ ”

 

 

   Rickon remembers reaching for her, saying something inane like,

 

 

   “ _Yes, please_ ,” and the rush of undressing her completely for the first time made his hands shake so badly she did most of it herself and then put him on his back flat out with the best view in the house and how she settled astride his lap like it was nothing and asked,

 

 

   “ _Dismantled your smoke alarm?_ ”

 

 

   He'd done that the day he moved in out of principle, didn't know anyone who hadn't, but she seemed to want to know and he must have told her because she pulled a pack of fags and a lighter out of her discarded skirt and asked him,

 

 

   “ _Do you mind?_ ” and he'd have let her get away with murder from the angle he had so he must have told her that as well, but he does remember asking,

 

 

   “ _I didn't know you smoked?_ ” because he'd never once smelt or tasted it on her mouth or clothes or hair, and she said nothing but,

 

 

   “ _Long day_ ,” and wrapped him like a present to herself, and lit up and rolled her shoulders and neck back, back, back and her hips forward, and he remembers feeling her inhale deeply like he was part of her, and the ends of her hair brushing his thighs as she exhaled slowly, and he remembers gasping her name as she breathed,

 

 

   “ _Don't move,_ ” and by the time she was down to the tips of her fingers because she wasn't a girl who believed in filters, Rickon felt like he'd been very gently tortured.

 

 

   He'd have forgiven her for putting it out on his bare skin, but she just put it in a mug on his desk and told him,

 

 

   “Thanks,” and then finished eking out a painfully slow and draining finish from both of them.

 

 

   If ever he gets old enough to go senile, Rickon hopes the memory of Shireen on top of him with her head thrown back so far he can only just make out the swell of her breasts and the beading of sweat between them as she rocked over him in time with the throb of his heart in his throat is the last thing to go before he becomes a complete vegetable.

 

 

   It sustains him until he reaches the meat and dairy aisle, at least, and then he has to check back into reality to make choices, but he finds himself blanking utterly on why he's even here, basket on his arm digging into his thigh as he picks at the arm-warmers bunched around his wrists.

 

 

   They're soft and black and comforting and they're not his.

 

 

   He only has them because he accidentally went off on them one morning when Shireen had him in hand and he felt so guilty he took them off her and hand-washed them himself specially three times to make sure they'd survive it, even though she said it didn't matter. They're cashmere though, he knows. And her hands get cold so easily. And he'd have given them back if there'd been time, if that hadn't been just before the last time he saw her and he hasn't seen or heard of or from her since, doesn't know where to find her, isn't sure he has a right to try...

 

 

   He tears his fingers away from them and reaches for the bacon, shouldering across someone else to do it unintentionally, and he says,

 

 

   “Sorry,” and they say,

 

 

   “Excuse me,” and the world ends.

 

 

   -

 

 

 


	2. You Know I Love It When The News Is Bad

 

 

 

   She's right there in an explosion of Patricia Morrison black hair and her eyes stormy in a cloud of kohl and her scars livid under the harsh lighting, armoured in black leather and still the most incredible, beautiful woman he's ever laid eyes on.

 

 

   He's as close to full mast as he can get in ten seconds and these trousers from nothing but the automatic response to her proximity, a reflex unchanged by time apart, but he still goes in half-cocked with a less hushed than choked,

 

 

   “Shireen...”

 

 

   “Rickon,” she breathes, her eyes wide and wet and her face so pale, and she takes a step back and then another and then she turns and runs straight for a massive chap with a nasty scar on his own face who tucks her under his arm and all but hides her in sheer angry bulk, and in a voice so deep and gruff it travels like a vindaloo fart in a silent church demands,

 

 

   “'Y'alrigh'?” and if Rickon went deaf he's sure he'd still hear Shireen's insistent, soaked,

 

 

   “I want to leave,” in his _soul_ because she punctuates it with a sobbed,

 

 

   “ _He's_ here,” and Rickon doesn't think two syllables have hurt this much since his mother barged in on he and Shireen through an unlocked door at seven in the evening because they didn't believe in locks at Skagos and his mother didn't believe in telling him she and his father were planning a surprise visit there -

 

 

   - so when they walked in Rickon had Shireen's legs wrapped around him and his thumbs firmly set in the notches of her hipbones, and his mother's shocked and condemning,

 

 

   “ ** _Rickon!_** ” might actually ring in his nightmares until his dying day, and that's why the last time he saw Shireen was when Catelyn and Ned Stark slammed the door on them together and Shireen detached herself from him with an angry lopsided flush and threw on her skirt and his black hoodie and shoved her feet back into her boots and left without a backwards glance but with a muttered,

 

 

   “ _Excuse me_ ,” as she passed his parents in the corridor with her head bowed, and it's why watching her leave much the same way now is unbearable, but it's all he can do, because he wants nothing more than to go and hide under a rock until he dies of misery.

 

 

   He abandons the basket where he stands because he can't cry in the middle of Waitrose but he also has to acknowledge that he can't ride home in this condition, and that leads him to have what is possibly the saddest wank in the history of self-service in the customer loos of Waitrose while sobbing into the wall, out of necessity.

 

 

   The only consolation he can find is that it's possibly also the shortest effort on record and that he doesn't spaff on the sodding arm-warmers, but he does forget and wipe his face on them, so they'll need a wash anyway, and the thought of that and how he _still_ won't be able to return them to Shireen afterwards makes him tear out of the loo about as quickly as he hobbled in, because he has to make it back home to Arya's before he can drown himself in tears and snot - that's not something he's willing to succumb to even semi-publically - so he rides back in a way you could call irresponsible if you don't take into account that he's working with limited visibility.

 

 

   Once safely inside the house he throws himself on his borrowed bed and cries until he feels sick and he hears Arya come home - because Gendry doesn't slam doors - and she shouts at him about bacon. When he doesn't respond, she trudges up the stairs to pound on the door and shout,

 

 

   “Rickon! Have you been in bed all day? You were s'posed to go shopping, what - ” but she only gets that far before he's up and ripping the door open and hissing,

 

 

   “Can you _not?_ ” and both she and Gendry, whose quieter presence was apparently masked by the way Arya's progression through life is more of a rampage, blink at him.

 

 

   “Rickon, mate,” Gendry asks, squinting in sympathy,

 

 

   “Have you been crying?” at exactly the same time as Arya narrows her eyes and demands,

 

 

   “Were you having a wank?”

 

 

   “What the bloody hell would you ask me that for?” Rickon howls, and Arya shrugs and defensively tells him,

 

 

   “You always look a misery, I don't know what you do to yourself!”

 

 

   “I look a misery because _she_ was only in the bastard supermarket,” Rickon snaps, and Arya screws up her face and asks,

 

 

   “Who?” as Gendry winces.

 

 

   “Who,” Rickon repeats bitterly,

 

 

   “ _Who_ , she asks - why am I here? Why aren't I still rotting at Skagos for not being enough like Robb, or living with Sansa, or at Jon's? Why am I _here_ , Arya?”

 

 

   “Because you're too much like Robb after all and mum and dad walked in on you shagging that girl up at Skagos, and Sansa and Jon both live too close to them and you can't stand the sight of them anymore,” Arya says indifferently, and then pauses and realises,

 

 

   “Oh. She was there. As in, _she_. Right.”

 

 

   Arya glances up at Gendry and then mutters in an aside,

 

 

   “So you were crying _and_ having a wank, fair enough,” and Rickon slams the door on her viciously, ignoring her instantly contrite cry of,

 

 

   “I'm sorry! Honestly, I am! Tell us what happened, please - did she see you? Did you talk?”

 

 

   He doesn't respond until he hears her sigh and soften her tone when she insists,

 

 

   “Really, we want to help, honest - come and have a cuppa and we'll talk about it...”

 

 

   It's so sincere and he's so tired that he opens the door again on her pleading expression and Gendry's encouraging smile.

 

 

   “There's no milk,” Rickon tells them dully, sullenly, and Arya shrugs.

 

 

   “Gendry can go down the shops, he'll only be five minutes,” she offers, and Gendry nods.

 

 

   “Yeah, won't be long,” he says agreeably, and pops off, and Arya turns big, wheedling eyes on Rickon and puffs out her bottom lip.

 

 

   “See? Come downstairs,” she coaxes, and he jabs his hands into his pockets and lets her lead the way downstairs into the kitchen, hearing Gendry leave as they go, and then he and Arya spend about three minutes in awkward silence sat across from each other as she looks at him expectantly, with badly-concealed eagerness.

 

 

   Thing is, _none_ of them know much more than that Rickon was dragged home from Skagos because Catelyn and Ned caught him having it off with some random girl, and that it was so embarrassing that Rickon couldn't manage to look his parents in the eye after that and ran off to live here instead.

 

 

   It's not the whole story, not by a long stretch.

 

 

   Rickon's not here because he's _embarrassed_.

 

 

   He's here because the thought of spending another fucking minute with his parents after the way they reacted to catching him with Shireen makes him so bloody angry he needs to set fire to something.

 

 

   He's here because Robb's done _so_ much worse than that - and under Catelyn's own roof, even - over the years, with a bloody _barrowful_ of girls, and been caught more times than bears thinking of, the shameless tosser, and fuck knows Theon's desecrated every _inch_ of their estate and probably every legally-aged female within a fifty-mile radius of it, too, and yet when Ned and Catelyn caught _Rickon_ with Shireen, once she'd left, they laid into him like he'd committed the most heinous bloody crime imaginable.

 

 

   Rickon's here because the fucking hypocrisy of them, of the way they - and especially Catelyn - read him the riot act like they hadn't told him specifically before packing him off to Skagos that they were doing it because it _troubled_ them that he was _so different_ to his brothers and they didn't know how to handle that, and yet the _minute_ he gets found out doing something they've probably seen _Robb_ doing about a hundred times, suddenly it's the worst thing they've ever seen in their _entire_ lives and they don't know if they'll _ever_ be able to recover from it, honestly sends him into a blind frothing rage.

 

 

   _“What on **earth** were you thinking?! We didn't send you here for **this**!”_ he remembers his mother screeching the minute she was in the door again,

 

 

_“We sent you here so you could get your head on straight - not so you could jump into bed with the first little tart who caught your eye!”_

_“You sent me here to get rid of me because I'm not like your precious **Robb** \- and she's not a tart!”_ he remembers screaming back, remembers Ned trying to calm them both down, take the edge off Catelyn's misplaced anger and disappointment, like it could hold a bloody candle to Rickon's.

 

 

   “ _Come on, love, he's only just sixteen, it's nothing we haven't been through with the other boys,_ ” Rickon remembers Ned trying,

 

 

   “ _Let's not go overboard!_ ”

 

 

   “ _Exactly! Only just sixteen! And excuse me for calling a spade a spade - what sort of girl do you suppose she is then, hm?_ ”

 

 

   “ _One who'd let him_ ,” Rickon remembers Ned saying reasonably, like it was just that, that simple, all there was to it, like she could have been anyone who'd wouldn't object and Rickon would've said **_'Ta' very much'_** and gotten stuck in, like it could all boil down to,

 

 

   “ _Can't expect him to turn it down when it's on a plate, can you? They're just kids, love - but your mum's right, Rickon, this isn't on, you're not here to be wasting time on this sort of thing -_ ”

 

 

   Like Shireen was an ill-advised extra-curricular activity distracting Rickon from the brainwashing-by-boredom-and-rules that his parents had hoped he'd finally just succumb to there.

 

 

   And the whole while Catelyn ranting and raving about how of _course_ Shireen was a nasty little tart, why else would she be _that_ easy, why else would Rickon have kept it a secret if it wasn't just some sordid little episode with the kind of girl who was clearly _much_ too old to be jumping into bed with Catelyn's youngest, _her little boy_ \- like Rickon hadn't stopped being that to her years ago -

 

 

   No.

 

 

   They dragged him back from Skagos kicking and screaming, and when they got him in the door of the house he grew up in he stayed exactly long enough to pack up what he'd left behind and call Arya and Gendry about their spare room, and when Catelyn demanded he hang about and explain himself, insisted _that girl_ was why he had to come back home where Catelyn could _keep an eye on him_ and keep him away from _bad influences_ because _clearly_ his behaviour had only gotten worse -

 

 

   “ _\- and this is exactly what we sent you to Skagos to try and correct -_ ”

 

 

   Rickon had told her to sod off in exactly so many words. She didn't take it well, but he fucking warned her before they even left the place.

 

 

   “ _If you try and make life difficult for her, I will never fucking forgive you_ ,” he'd promised, and they hadn't listened.

 

 

   They hadn't listened because the idea that all of Rickon's _'problems'_ could be finally laid at the feet of some external influence was just too bloody tempting to ignore.

 

 

   Like it was somehow Shireen's fault that Rickon stopped listening to his mother when he was five and realised that she wanted another baby because she was _bored_ , and Rickon understood he was replaceable. Like it was somehow Shireen's fault that Rickon hasn't done anything the way his parents have wanted him to since he developed enough self-awareness to understand that he was his own person, separate from his family and the weight of their crushing expectations for him to resemble them somehow.

 

 

   Like it made any bloody sense for Catelyn to march him down to the headmistress' office and claim he'd been corrupted by an older female student and demanding that Rickon identify her so she could be singled out for punishment and Catelyn could take her son home from what was clearly a ' _damaging environment_ '.

 

 

   Like it wasn't her idea to send him there in the first place because she didn't know what else to do with him.

 

 

   Like it wasn't Catelyn Stark's own fucking fault that _her last baby_ has hated her nearly all his life for her inability to decide between smothering, overprotective, micro-managing attempts to mould him into the shape of his brothers, and complete disinterest, with nothing in-between except growing frustration that he wouldn't bend to either without a fight.

 

 

   Telling Catelyn Stark to her face to piss off when she threw a fit because he wouldn't name Shireen to them and land her in it is the only even remotely fond memory he has of the whole debacle - the moment he made it clear to his mother that he cared more about someone she'd decided to victimise and project her parental feelings on to out of lazy selfishness than he did about her echoes triumphant in the chambers of his heart even now.

 

 

   “So?” Arya prompts, dragging him out of the past and the vicious pang of bitterness he'll probably always feel about the whole debacle,

 

 

   “Who _is_ she? Did you know she's about? Have you two even spoken since then - were you even involved enough to talk about anything, or was it just one of those things?”

 

 

   “No,” he snaps, because it's too close to Ned's ' _because she let him_ ', too close to his mother's snap-judgment estimation of Shireen as some scheming floozy leading Rickon down a bad road,

 

 

   “It was never like that!”

 

 

   “So what was it like?” Arya asks, impatience shining through, and Rickon bites his tongue.

 

 

   “It was real,” he says curtly,

 

 

   “It was real, and she's - I miss her. And I didn't think I'd ever see her again, and when she did see me earlier, she couldn't wait to be off and gone - went off with some giant bloke arms the size of your thigh, and I don't bloody blame her after what happened!”

 

 

   “What _did_ happen, Rickon?” Arya pushes, exasperated,

 

 

   “Other than mum hitting the roof when she saw you.”

 

 

   “She only fucking tried to make me shop her to the head so she could be expelled for _corrupting_ me, like that makes any bloody sense!” Rickon growls, clenching his hands tight,

 

 

   “Like she hasn't seen the lot of you do worse sooner - like this isn't exactly why she shipped me off in the first place, so I'd start acting more like all of _you_!”

 

 

   “Think she just sent you there because she thought she'd give someone else a go of trying to make you do what you're told,” Arya muses, and Rickon snarls.

 

 

   “Like any of _you_ have ever done what you're told! It's always _me_ \- I'm always the fucking problem,” he points out venomously, so bloody fed up with being singled out as different when compared to the utter fucking nonsense his siblings have been getting away with since long before he was born, he's practically dull as ditchwater, and Arya just shrugs.

 

 

   “She probably hoped you'd be different, and then you were, but not like she'd hoped,” she says philosophically.

 

 

   “Right, and that's why whenever Robb does _anything_ she practically pisses herself with delight, but Gods fucking forbid I question anything she says or disagree with anything or make a decision for myself,” he fires back with disgust, and she just shrugs again.

 

 

   “Don't know what to tell you. Think she's just a nutter,” she opines, and Rickon crosses his arms and leans back in his chair and looks away pointedly.

 

 

   There's another few minutes of silence.

 

 

   “Why didn't you look her up, this girl of yours?” Arya asks finally, when she can't restrain her curiosity anymore, and Rickon makes sure there's no mistaking how bloody stupid he thinks she sounds when he stares at her and flatly replies,

 

 

   “Oh, yeah. Thought I'd just ring her up and tell her sorry my parents don't know how to knock and caught us shagging, and also sorry my mental case of a mother got the head mistress to turn out the _entire_ girl's wing to try and find her so she could be punished for supposedly taking advantage of me somehow, but how'd she like to come round for a cuppa sometime and reminisce about old times. That'd go down a treat.”

 

 

   “It might have!” Arya cries defensively,

 

 

   “You don't know it wouldn't've - maybe she thought you would and now she's just pissed off that you never did!”

 

 

   “Bloody doubt it,” he mutters darkly, looking away again, and after a moment Arya shift in her seat.

 

 

   “Did mum seriously get them to turn _all_ the girls out because you wouldn't grass up this one girl?” she asks quietly, disbelief thick in her voice.

 

 

   He stares at her blankly until she flinches and holds up her hands, exclaiming,

 

 

   “Sorry! Sorry, I just - that is out of order. How did they not find her, then?”

 

 

   “She probably hid. She's not bloody stupid, I don't know what anyone thought they were accomplishing there, like she'd just line up and wait to be recognised,” Rickon scoffs, still bloody infuriated that Catelyn insisted on inconveniencing everyone like that, refused to let it go, harped on about it all the way home, that the little tart should be expelled for indecency and whatever else would stick - just the fact that no one gave Shireen enough credit to suppose she'd think to hide to avoid repercussions is ridiculous.

 

 

   “I keep telling Sansa mum's losing the plot,” Arya comments.

 

 

   “Yeah, well,” he mutters, and they lapse into silence again.

 

 

   This time it's broken only when Gendry comes back, shaking off the rain and walking into the kitchen with an encouraging smile and a pint of milk in each hand, putting them on the counter and then opening the fridge, asking,

 

 

   “Shall I put the kettle on then?”

 

 

   “Thanks, yeah,” Arya tells him with a bit of a smile, but Rickon doesn't bother. He's done for the day.

 

 

   “You'll never guess who I met down the corner shop,” Gendry says good-naturedly, filling the kettle and then putting it on to boil, pulling mugs out of the cupboard and setting them up in a row, and Arya grunts questioningly, prompting Gendry to carry on cheerily,

 

 

   “ _Shireen_! You know, I've not seen her in _ages_ \- I'd no idea she was back - ”

 

 

   “What did you just fucking say?” Rickon demands through clenched teeth, snapping all his ruthless attention to Gendry in an instant, who turns around with a tea-bag in his hand and a confused, apprehensive expression clouding his smile.

 

 

   “Er - I said I met my cousin down the corner shop - Shireen? Sort-of cousin, I s'pose - actually, you might know her, she's been away at that school you were at - you'd know her if you saw her, she's got long black hair and blue eyes, and a - ”

 

 

   That's as far as he gets, because Rickon kicks back his chair so hard it collides with the fridge, howling, and he doesn't so much shove the table out of his way as he turns it over with a violent crash.

 

 

   He slams the door hard enough it springs open again when he tears off into the rain.

 

 

   -

 

 

  


	3. I Didn't Accidentally Tell You That

 

 

 

   “Right then,” Arya says dryly when he slinks back inside hours later soaked to the bone to find them sat in the living room eating chocolate digestives and watching Midsomer Murders, the bastards,

 

 

   “You done?”

 

 

   He tries to ignore her, but she pushes a cup of tea across the table at him and he snatches it up and glares at her over the rim as he drinks it.

 

 

   “Good,” she comments, then puts a hand on Gendry's knee and says,

 

 

   “Gendry and I have decided this has gone on long enough. Since she's obviously the problem, we've texted Shireen, and you're seeing her for a cuppa tomorrow in town.”

 

 

   “What the effing _fuck_ \- ” Rickon growls at the same time Gendry complains,

 

 

   “ _You_ decided, and you made _me_ text, I want no part in it - ” and Arya punches his thigh and hisses,

 

 

   “You're supposed to support me!”

 

 

   “I do support you, I just don't think - ” Gendry begins, and Rickon shouts,

 

 

   “I'm not bloody going!” over their budding domestic, and Arya whips her head round to give him a warning look and insists,

 

 

   “You bloody are! You're not moping around here the rest of your life, we're getting this sorted one way or the other and then I don't want to hear another word about it!”

 

 

   “I'm not _going_ \- you can shove it up your arse - ” Rickon snarls,

 

 

   “And if you can't be fucked to deal with me anymore, I'll just bugger off elsewhere, I don't need you!”

 

 

   “You'll go nowhere,” Arya snaps, and Gendry raises his voice firmly for a change and says,

 

 

   “No one is going anywhere! Except you, mate, I really think you should go and see her,” he adds with apologetic sincerity and great big wheedling cow eyes,

 

 

   “I reckon it'll be good for both of you to get this sorted out, get some closure.”

 

 

   “I told you, she doesn't want to talk to me, she couldn't get away fast enough!” Rickon shouts, hurt and angry that he's expected to just conveniently forget that so easily just because it apparently doesn't matter to _them_ , and Gendry winces but Arya just states,

 

 

   “Shock,” like that's that, and then carries on with ruthless determination,

 

 

   “And it's decided now, so you're going. Gendry will take you, since it's him she's expecting.”

 

 

   “Hang on a sodding minute - she's _expecting_ Gendry,” Rickon repeats, frowning so hard the moisture sliding from his hair down his face follows the furrows unpleasantly,

 

 

   “She doesn't even know I'll be there?”

 

 

   “Well, we couldn't agree on a way to tell her over text, so no,” Arya admits with a shrug, getting another biscuit out of the packet,

 

 

   “But it'll be fine once she sees you and you get into it. You just need to clear the air.”

 

 

   She bites into the biscuit then shrugs again, adding,

 

 

   “Maybe finally finish shagging in the loo or something, you know, put it to bed proper like so you can both move on.”

 

 

   Biscuits, tea, and the table go flying as he dives for her, she leaps up to run with a yell, and Gendry gets between them and grabs Rickon around the middle, pinning one of his arms and dragging him back as Arya shrieks from behind the telly,

 

 

   “I'm only _saying_ , you need to get _past_ this - ”

 

 

   “ _FUCK_ YOU, ARYA - GENDRY LET GO - ”

 

 

   “ - and if that's what it takes - ” Arya continues, and Gendry hauls him back with a strained grunt as Rickon lunges at her again, both of them colliding awkwardly with the sofa and losing their balance as Arya finishes,

 

 

   “ - then you just have to deal with it!”

 

 

   “SHUT UP - ”

 

 

   “ _Seriously_ , Arry, please stop talking about my cousin like that,” Gendry pleads through gritted teeth as he struggles to keep Rickon on the floor, and Arya darts across the room to stand over them with a pout and crossed arms, demanding,

 

 

   “Fuck's sake, Rickon, get a grip, you're not three anymore and you're wrecking my living room!”

 

 

   “Arya, can you not make it worse - ” Gendry snaps as Rickon twists and howls to get loose, grabbing for her leg and making her dance away, and she screeches,

 

 

   “Just let him up, see if anyone'll take him in if he goes for me - bloody _toddler!_ No wonder mum and dad had enough!”

 

 

   All the rage clears in an instant, and instead Rickon feels Gendry stiffen against his back, hears him say in a cold, clear voice,

 

 

   “That's properly out of order, Arya,” and Arya protesting, but Rickon's miles away.

 

 

   Miles and miles, to being a child and having no friends but his siblings because it doesn't take long for him to become ' _that weird Stark kid_ ' once he starts school and he's not in the same year as anyone he knows, doesn't have break-times with anyone he knows, and doesn't know or like to play anything the other children somehow all know how to play already and enjoy. Doesn't take long for them all to notice that he doesn't trust them, doesn't like to be touched, and it becomes a new favourite game, pulling on the curls he can't stand to let anyone near to cut, trying to make him angry so he'll have a tantrum, and even when he takes to running off to climb trees where they can't get to him, he ends up surrounded, and if he doesn't come down by the time the bell rings, the teachers come out to get him down and he's a spectacle anyway, another reason to tease him.

 

 

   All those report cards telling his parents he's _sullen and deliberately antagonistic_ , that he runs off, starts fights - all those years being picked on and singled out and having no one except his family, the brothers and sisters who so rarely have the time to really listen to him even when he does talk.

 

 

   All leading up to one too many fights, one too many comments about his ugly slag sister or his bastard brother, _can't believe he's related to Sansa and Robb,_ one too many curls pulled, and suddenly he's in the head's office with his parents and Catelyn fucking crying and asking him why, why would he behave this way, like it comes as a surprise that he just got sick of no one listening, no one noticing. Like he hasn't tried to tell them.

 

 

   “ _We just can't condone this kind of behaviour_ ,” he remembers the head saying, and his parents agreeing. Alternatives being suggested. Somewhere more regulated. Somewhere away from the sheltering influence of his family.

 

 

   What sheltering influence, he always wanted to ask, but he didn't. No one would have listened.

 

 

   The thing is, Arya knows this.

 

 

   Well after the fact, true, but she knows _now_.

 

 

   He doesn't even notice that Gendry's weight is off him and that he's being pulled up and led off upstairs until Gendry closes the door to his room and sort of steers him towards the bed and then sits down next to him and says,

 

 

   “I'm sorry.”

 

 

   “'S alright,” Rickon tells him, numb lips and blank eyes. It's alright. It doesn't matter.

 

 

   “It's not,” Gendry sighs,

 

 

   “She knows it's not. She'll be in agony over this later once she calms down, you know. She knows it's not your fault, she just... Doesn't understand.”

 

 

   “You do,” Rickon follows up, just something to say.

 

 

   “Yeah,” Gendry agrees, quiet and grave,

 

 

   “I do.”

 

 

   He really does, Rickon knows. Growing up poor with a single mum, a confirmed bastard child in a shit part of town, too big for his age always and his mum never quite catching up to it, so the pennies and last few inches on his wrists and ankles never quite matched up. Gendry knows what it's like to be the kid the others like to laugh at, like to goad.

 

 

   It's why he's gone into business for himself as a smith. Can't stand to be around most people - definitely can't stand the kind of casual shit-talking that goes on in a workplace with other people in it.

 

 

   It's why despite the fact that he's a sweet, softly-spoken young man, Catelyn and Ned don't approve of Arya living with Gendry, even though they'll admit he was the least worst by their standards of the choices she could have made when she up and ran off to ' _find herself on her terms_ '. The kind of shit you can do when you're Arya.

 

 

   Gendry has anger issues too. About things that are unfair. Unkindness. Things going wrong for no reason. Family stuff.

 

 

   Gendry gets it.

 

 

   He also, it seems, gets the giant snag in Arya's awful, short-sighted, cock-eyed scheme, because he huffs and hunches his shoulders and grimaces - as well he bloody might, Rickon feels. He's much too soft on her. Lets her do just exactly as she likes, and it's just not on, she's never been good without boundaries.

 

 

   Then again, Rickon reflects, if it were him, given half a chance with Shireen...

 

 

   He'd let her do whatever the fuck she wanted as well. That's probably what they mean when they say this bollocks makes you blind and stupid, although in Rickon's case it's more like the way he feels about Shireen raises his general existence to a state of enlightened being he imagines is second only to godhood. Leastways that's how he's always felt when she's deigned to grace him with her various favours, and given that used to happen on the daily, he now imagines that had there been anyone at all at Skagos to show off to, he'd likely have done so in probably the absolutely most twattish fashion he could, purely on the strength of how bloody invincible she used to make him feel.

 

 

   If Gendry feels like that about Rickon's sister then bless the lad for even trying to stand up to her, honestly. He should be given a medal.

 

 

   “I didn't want to trick Shireen,” Gendry rumbles, genuinely unhappy about it, and Rickon sympathises but he lets him go on regardless,

 

 

   “Shouldn't've done it. I just asked her if she'd be up for a chat since it's been a while she's been home and I've not seen her since she left.”

 

 

   Rickon makes a vague sound so Gendry'll know he's being listened to, but he keeps his eyes on the carpet.

 

 

   Even just hearing her name hurts. Possibly because until now, Rickon has never heard anyone talk about her. No one even knew who she was. In a way, it was as if she existed in a vacuum, before - he'd never heard her name spoken by anyone but her, never spoken of her to anyone in identifiable terms, had no way to contact her and no reason to feel he had a right to try and find her...

 

 

   Now, she's reachable. It's like she's more real than she ever was to him, now that he knows she's Gendry's cousin - because what other Shireen with blue eyes and long black hair could there possibly be who was at Skagos at the same time as Rickon? - and that she's not just a precious secret of Rickon's cruelly exposed by his meddling parents.

 

 

   She was always _real_ , but now she's tangible. She has a presence beyond the weight of memory. She has a place here, in the real world.

 

 

   He'd never even thought of her like that before. It strikes him that before he saw her today, the only other time he's seen her where it hasn't been exclusively the two of them was when his parents walked in on them, and it's an oddly painful thought.

 

 

   “Bit weird, your mystery lady being my cousin, and all,” Gendry goes on, and Rickon shrugs.

 

 

   “Didn't know,” he supplies.

 

 

   Again, it's just a fact. He _might_ have thought to mention it if he'd known, but honestly, he might just as well not have for the same reasons. He certainly still would have only told Gendry, and _perhaps_ Arya. The point is, it wouldn't have _mattered_ if Rickon had known her on sight, known she was Gendry's cousin that first day - she'd still have been Shireen. He'd still have made exactly the same choices. Everything would have been the same.

 

 

   Honestly Rickon's not sure Shireen would have given a toss if Rickon had known and told her about the connection.

 

 

   Or rather... she still would have given him a toss, since knowing that Rickon knows Gendry wouldn't have been an obstacle to that.

 

 

   “'M not blaming you,” Gendry insists, clapping him on the shoulder for good measure,

 

 

   “She's lovely. Just... been through some stuff. Like the rest of us. I know she wasn't sent off by choice, either. Makes sense, the two of you would have got on up there.”

 

 

   Rickon nods. His eyes are sore and he's chilled through.

 

 

   “Look,” Gendry sighs heavily, spreading his hands,

 

 

   “If you really don't want to go, that's fine. I understand. I'll go on my own, have a nice cuppa with my cousin, and catch up. I won't blame you for staying away.”

 

 

   Rickon blinks.

 

 

   “But... If you really cared about her, up there... Mate, you could do worse than tie things off properly,” Gendry goes on, sounding exhausted and hopeful and like he actually sees a way for all this to somehow end well even if it really, truly _ends_ , like Rickon won't bugger it all sideways somehow, or end up upsetting Shireen because there's just no _way_ to properly apologise for what happened.

 

 

   “You _did_ care, right?” Gendry follows up with a concerned look, like he's suddenly not quite sure,

 

 

   “I mean, I know Arya thinks you've been bothered just 'cause of all that with your parents, but - I mean, it's not my business, but - we figured out it was her from the way you reacted earlier, obviously, and it just seems like that was a bit much for, I don't know, just a casual thing - like that was a bit too much drama if it was just about your parents and that - ”

 

 

   “I care,” Rickon tells him, hoarse and low and cutting through all the bollocks to get to the only thing that really matters,

 

 

   “It's not about them. Nothing's about them, they just wish it was. She's... I can't just ambush her. Not the way we left it.”

 

 

   “Listen... We're not close, like, but... I don't want to mess her about,” Gendry says firmly, like he's made a decision and he's going to stick to it come hell or high water, and Rickon knows he will because it's the only reason he's managed to stick Arya for this long - he's a persistent bastard and he's loyal to the point of pain.

 

 

   “You look me in the eye, you tell me you're honestly upset because she meant something to you, I'll take your word for it, mate,” Gendry goes on, looking square at him, and Rickon looks back, waiting for the kicker, but there's no judgement and no condemnation on Gendry's face and his eyes and tone are quiet and sincere when he finishes,

 

 

   “And I'll text her and come clean about all this, and we'll take it from there. See what she says. You do want to see her, don't you?”

 

 

   “I never got her number because I saw her every day for almost a year,” Rickon tells him bloodlessly, tonelessly, empty and hollowed-out after everything, just the truth left, and that last little corner of painful, throbbing emotion that belongs to Shireen, that's not to be touched until she touches it,

 

 

   “And the only reason I even know what date it is, 's so I'll know how long it's been since I saw her last.”

 

 

   He doesn't know how else to say what's so unspeakable about it all, but Gendry nods like it makes all the sense in the world.

 

 

   “I'll text her,” he says simply, pulling out his phone, and Rickon nods and sinks his face into his hands and just waits.

 

 

   It's only a few minutes, probably, before Gendry murmurs,

 

 

   “She's... not happy about the lying,” and Rickon sighs so hard it feels like part of his soul left his body.

 

 

   For all he knows, it did, he's not exactly keeping track of it.

 

 

   “Got a right to be unhappy, hasn't she,” he comments, and it's bitter because _that's_ the truth of what's left, bitterness and a desperate longing to be put out of his misery somehow, and after another few minutes of tense silence, Gendry finally says,

 

 

   “She... yeah, she's not happy, exactly, but she says... if you want to sort this out, that's what she wants, too. She'll see you tomorrow if you'll go with me.”

 

 

   “She will?” Rickon demands, feeling like a broken Slinky trying to uncoil and go up the stairs instead of down when he sits up properly and cranes his head towards Gendry's phone and then sort of awkwardly realises he's also snatched at it and takes his hand away, clearing his throat and hurrying on,

 

 

   “She - really, she won't - she'll see me? She'll talk to me, tomorrow, she said that?”

 

 

   “Yeah,” Gendry says simply, like it's that easy, handing over the phone like it's nothing and inviting him to,

 

 

   “Have a look.”

 

 

   He's never seen anything she's written before, even in type rather than handwriting. They never exchanged numbers, reception was shite at Skagos anyway and there never seemed a need, never even occurred to him because he saw her every day at least once after a while, so there's never been any texting, any calls, anything at all like that between them.

 

 

   It feels oddly invasive and momentous to read the text but it's fairly basic as texts go.

 

 

   Something warm fills his throat and chest when he realises he was expecting her texting to be accurate and devoid of emoticons, and he was bang on the money.

 

 

_'I'm not happy with the way you've gone about this, but we can discuss that later. If Rickon wants to speak to me, bring him tomorrow. We'll sort it out, don't worry.'_

 

 

   He wants to feel like the last part is ominous somehow and give in to his own fatalistic depressive convictions about this whole scheme and how it's doomed to horrific failure, but honestly something about the fact that she hasn't called him a twat - just the fact that she's referring to him by name -

 

 

   If it were his phone he'd probably rub the open text screen all over himself and have a bit of a combined whinge and panic while at the same time feeling inappropriately overjoyed that she wrote his name, but since it's Gendry's, he just looks away and hands it over without a word, and there's a bit of tension until Gendry jostles his elbow and expectantly says,

 

 

   “Well?”

 

 

   “I'll go,” Rickon tells him, because he can't stay away. He doesn't know what it would take to make him stay away from Shireen but he can't do it, not when she's expressed an even very vague wish to see him.

 

 

   So what if he ends up crying in front of her, he's not ashamed of his feelings. He just hopes she doesn't end up crying because while he's reasonably certain he's not going to get away from actually talking through all this crap with her dry-eyed for the duration, he cannot stand to see her upset.

 

 

   “Good lad,” Gendry insists with an encouraging smile, and Rickon grimaces.

 

 

   He's not, not really. He certainly doesn't deserve Shireen - he never has - and honestly that's exactly what he expects to hear from her.

 

 

   That she's moved on, that it was all just part of who they were and what was happening to them at the time, that she's upset about how things ended but she knows now that she can do better.

 

 

   Rickon expects it because he's been expecting it since day one and it never made a difference to how he responds to her, how he cares, but he's been waiting for it, and now that the countdown is actual he wishes he could just go back to the unfinished business of before, where he could at least find a bit of self-deluding comfort in the idea that she might not have broken it off with him if his parents hadn't interfered.

 

 

   Now, he's going to have to have her confirm that she would have. That she has _now_ certainly and she's past it and she's doing well without him, and he hopes, he really hopes that's true, for her sake, because she deserves to be doing well, but...

 

 

   He thinks about it.

 

 

   He thinks about it after Gendry leaves with a promise to get him tomorrow when it's time, lying on his bed with the rain clattering against his window and soft rock of the seventies to eighties on the radio he always forgets to turn off because finding the only station that plays anything even close to tolerable around here has been murder and he likes the distraction of unpredictable but inoffensive background noise to his thoughts.

 

 

   He lies there thinking about how he wanted to run away with her, if the time came and she decided she couldn't stay. He knows he'd have asked. He wouldn't have left without her at all if he hadn't been forced to, and that's what's hurting, now.

 

 

   After he sees her tomorrow, he won't be seeing her again, unless Gendry and Arya get married at some point and invite so many people to the wedding Rickon won't be able to weasel out of that he runs a chance of meeting Shireen there instead, but apart from that horrific scenario, he can't imagine where he'd see her once they get this cleared up and part friends. Because they'll part friends. He's sure of that. There'll be polite but ultimately awkward and insincere promises to keep in touch that'll never be kept, and then for the rest of forever, she'll be lost to him, because he can't have her in the real world where she could do so much better, and he's got no right to ask or expect anything.

 

 

   He used to see her every day, every morning. Tomorrow's going to be the last morning.

 

 

   -

 

 

 


	4. You Can Keep Me Company, As Long As You Don't Care

 

 

 

   He thinks about it until his clothes have dried to the point where they're just damp instead of soaked and he can feel the crease on his cheek from the duvet bunched up under his face, and his entire body feels like a broken accordion because he hasn't budged since he crumpled from a sitting position when Gendry left him earlier, but he doesn't move until the light changes and Gendry's in his room again looking solemn and disappointed and saying things which mean nothing, like,

 

 

   “Were you just lying here all night since I left you?” and,

 

 

   “Bugger me, mate, go and take a bloody shower and get changed,” and complying is easier than resisting but all it's doing is hastening the ultimate end, so he'll admit he has a cry in the shower with the temperature turned up too high so he won't be questioned when he comes out pink and swollen-eyed, and he drinks the cup of tea Gendry shoves into his hand without a word, and gets dressed feeling like he should make an effort before he realises there's no point because he's still going to look an absolute misery, as supported by Gendry eyeing him sideways and muttering,

 

 

   “Bloody hell, you didn't sleep at all did you,” and Rickon doesn't know or care what time it is beyond that it's the last morning that will ever have meaning ever again, but he does know he didn't sleep, so he just shrugs and collapses into his hoodie like a sodden bit of tissue and waits for Gendry to finish his breakfast.

 

 

   “Where's Arya?” he asks at last, more to have something to contribute than because he cares to know, and he sounds as awful as he feels, hoarse and exhausted, but it's Gendry who clears his throat and keeps his eyes glued to his plate as he mops up the last bit of runny yellow egg with the scruffy end of his butty.

 

 

   “Banished to Jon's,” he replies, guilty as fuck and pushing his chair back to go and put his plate in the sink and wash his hands,

 

 

   “Went las' night.”

 

 

   “Sorry,” Rickon tells him, but it's not entirely sincere, and Gendry just shrugs and doesn't respond, and Rickon knows it's because Gendry can afford not to go to pieces over Arya swanning off to Jon's for a bit because she didn't get her way exactly how she wanted it, because Gendry knows Arya's coming back. He'll miss her while she's gone, but she'll be back.

 

 

   If Rickon were less of a tired mess he'd feel bitter and jealous about it, but mostly he feels a bit sorry for Gendry that he has to deal with all this. Seems a bit unfair that he has to handle two unmanageable Starks, but then again, he made his choices.

 

 

   “Let's be off, yeah?” is all Gendry says when he turns back round, no attempt at misplaced cheer today, and Rickon glances at the clock.

 

 

   “Shireen said twelve,” Gendry clarifies, and Rickon wonders whether time will ever matter again, but he follows Gendry into the hall and shoves on his boots and when he rises and Gendry shoves his helmet at him, it doesn't occur to him to question it until he's been herded outside and Gendry's locking the door with his own helmet dangling from his hand, and when he flings Rickon's keys at him, he fumbles them out of tired lack of expectation and has to pick them out of the mud and wipe them on his trousers with a half-hearted,

 

 

   “Fuck're you up to,” that's mostly just exasperation at himself because he doesn't appreciate being forced to think and anticipate anything at all other than his imminent soul-crushing right now, but Gendry looks fairly unrepentant.

 

 

   “Wake up, Rickon,” he says, a tad harshly,

 

 

   “This matters, yeah? Shireen matters to you?”

 

 

   “Of course she bloody does!” Rickon bites back, suddenly alive to the chilly misting rain clustering on his jacket and fingers and curls and eyelashes with the contrast of anger prickling hotly at his nerve endings and forcing his eyes back into focus and his attention back to the now, and it strikes him that Gendry's eyes are the same deep blue as Shireen's and full of the same hard, stubborn decisiveness that used to give Rickon's time a direction and a focal point, and it's enough to shake off the dullness of apathetic suspense in the face of what he knows is coming, because what's coming is, in essence, that he's going to see her.

 

 

   She agreed to that, she wants to see him. It doesn't matter how it goes, how it ends. Nothing's done until she's _told_ him it's done - he's got no right to put words in her mouth before he's even seen her. He doesn't know anything about what she's been doing since last they really spoke, he doesn't know why she's here, he's got no way of knowing what she might or might not say to him today.

 

 

   It's likely that she'll tell him this is it, but likely is all it is.

 

 

   “Then wake up and stop looking like you've given up the ghost already, mate! Nothing's settled 'til it's settled, alright? Now get moving,” Gendry pushes after his bit of hard truth that's actually somehow quite positive, really, adding practically,

 

 

   “We're riding separately so's I can go to work while you two sort yourselves out; all you have to do is follow me.”

 

 

   So Rickon does.

 

 

   He follows Gendry all the way into town, parks right next to him outside some cafe type place Rickon's never noticed before - probably because he's never cared to seeing as he doesn't enjoy spending time out and about among other human beings - and trudges along in his wake like he can hide behind him on the way in, even though for all Gendry's bulk that'd never work in a million years since between Rickon's height and his hair no amount of slouching in the world's going to make him anonymous, and there she is.

 

 

   Already there, punctual as ever.

 

 

   _Radiant_ as ever, drizzle-damp doing things for her Rickon's sure it doesn't do for any other person alive, living reminder of mornings past, making his fingers twitch with the memory of how her hair feels when it's softer and heavier misted with rain, and his heart aches right alongside his bollocks when she gets up to greet Gendry with a hug and a murmured,

 

 

   “Lovely seeing you,” and Rickon's fairly certain both have taken up residence in his throat when she looks at him and says,

 

 

   “Hello, Rickon,” because he can only just about croak,

 

 

   “Shireen,” and he feels like he's about to be sick so he doesn't mind Gendry intervening.

 

 

   “Right then - I'll leave you to it, I've got a rush order on needs finishing by end of day so I can't hang about here,” he says with mild regret, and Rickon sees Shireen's little ' _oh_ ' of silent disappointment and tries desperately not to wonder whether it's because she's about to lose a cousin-sized buffer between her and Rickon or because she's upset she won't actually get to catch up with Gendry at all, but Gendry's already hugging her again and promising,

 

 

   “We'll get together another day, yeah? Just you and me,” and she nods and smiles even though she looks sad and uncomfortable now, and when Gendry tells her goodbye she echoes it unenthusiastically, then Gendry's off with a firm hand on Rickon's shoulder and a muttered,

 

 

   “Don't bugger it up,” and they're alone with only the deeply uninterested staff for company.

 

 

   There's a brief moment where he toes the floor with his filthy boot and does a little painting with the muck it leaves behind - just abstract, nothing fancy - and she fidgets and tucks her hair behind her ear and then changes her mind and fluffs it back out again, and then she takes control like she always has done and clears her throat and looks him straight in the eye even though he was trying not to let that happen, and she says,

 

 

   “I'll wait if you want something,” and he's so struck by how close she is after all this time wanting her and missing her that it takes him far too long to realise what the fuck she's on about, and then everything's just as awkward as he'd feared it would be as he shakes his head too hard after clocking the cup of tea on the table she was sitting at when they came in, and tries to cover up how bloody stupid she makes him by just plonking himself down in the chair opposite hers and insisting,

 

 

   “I'm fine,” when he's sure he's never told a worse lie in his entire life so far, and he immediately regrets not having his own cup to fiddle with when she sits down across from him and wraps her hands around hers, thus avoiding the whole problem of what to do with them while he flounders like a tit before deciding to just lean his arms on the edge of the table and hope for the best.

 

 

   If he was expecting her to be less captivating out here in the real world with uncaring witnesses, he's buggered, because if anything, she somehow manages to make even the dingy light filtered through the rain on the window and the blandly generic decor around them seem alive and worthwhile, like it all serves at least the purpose of highlighting how much impact she has, and if _she_ was expecting _him_ to be any more articulate in the face of that than he's always failed to be, she's due for a let-down, because not only is he content to just soak up her nearness, he's not actually sure he's up to addressing it.

 

 

   No prizes then for guessing she's the one who starts.

 

 

   “I didn't know you knew Gendry,” she opens with, and it's a safe topic, it's an easy topic, but he still manages to trip over himself answering her.

 

 

   “He's Arya's - my sister - he's her - they live together? I'm staying with them. That's why. I mean - I didn't know Gendry was your cousin, ever, until yesterday. He said he saw you and I...”

 

 

   He gets that far and stops, her frown and the fact that he's babbling like an absolute idiot cutting him off before he can paint himself into a corner when he's barely even out of the gate, mixed metaphors be hung, but fuck him, he wasn't ready for this, wasn't ready for her even after months of wanting and waiting and dreaming he's not bloody _ready_ -

 

 

   He should be, though.

 

 

   He should be when it's all he's thought about since the moment she left and didn't even look back at him.

 

 

   He _should_ be ready - for every glance his way from those eyes and for every word from her mouth and the way he can _smell_ her because she's no further away than he could touch if he reached over the table - but even before that the scent of her clung to Gendry from just two short hugs and hit Rickon full in the face when Gendry passed him to leave, and Rickon should have known it would because he knows _all_ about that, knows how little it takes once whatever it is she uses in her hair gets damp, how it clings to _everything_ , like the ghost of her on his hands and in his sleeves, enough to last all day until she comes sneaking into his room at night, because how many times hasn't he taken a quick time-out mid-lesson on Skagos to go and take care of himself in the loo with his hand over his mouth to breathe her in and shut himself up, lost in memories of mornings and nights with her and hopes for the evening to come?

 

 

   He's _never_ really been ready for her, is the thing. He's never been in control and never had any when it comes to Shireen, and now's no different. A whole lifetime wouldn't change that, he's sure of it, even though he'll never know now, but he's never been ready for her - from the second she ducked behind that bloody bike-shed she's been taking him by surprise and catching him with his trousers down.

 

 

   Literally, more than once, and the memories hurt so much more now that he's right in front of her and they seem so much more vivid and _he_ feels _so_ much more useless -

 

 

   “Rickon...” she says quietly, and she looks upset and beautiful and far, far too good for a complete wreck like him,

 

 

   “Please,” she asks, and it's not the ' _Rickon, please_ ' she used that night he figured out how to string her along on the edge until it actually made her angry but she was too bonelessly wrung out to do more than tug on his hair and dig her nails into his arm and plead, and it's not the ' _Rickon, please_ ' she whispered into the crook of his neck the night she told him about her parents and he had too many questions she couldn't answer without crying and she just wanted to be held and not have to think anymore, and this isn't a ' _Rickon, please_ ' that he _knows_ , but he knows _her_.

 

 

   “I'm sorry,” he tells her, and it's supposed to be _sorry for fucking this up_ and _sorry for being like this and making it so hard_ and _sorry for everything_ , but she shrugs a little further into her jacket and sucks on her lower lip and says,

 

 

   “It's alright. Just...” and then she looks up and her eyes shine, and she agrees with all the shit in his head like he needs reminding,

 

 

   “You know me,” and he does, he _does_ and it hurts, but she's not wrong when she says,

 

 

   “You don't have to explain. I know all about all of that. It's alright,” and of course she's right, because if he knows her, she knows him, too, and how could he have forgotten the most important part of that?

 

 

   “I know - ” he echoes, nodding slowly, trying to sort himself out and not think about how his legs are much too long to fit properly under the table without knocking into hers or at least resting _much_ too close to hers considering she probably wants nothing to do with him, so he ends up sort of tangled in his chair and partly spread-eagled in a really uncomfortable way to avoid that, knowing full well he sounds as utterly stupid as he likely looks when he says,

 

 

   “I just... this is weird.”

 

 

   Massively understating the obvious like the plonker he is.

 

 

   “It's just... difficult,” she corrects, and then shoots a glance at the staff by the counter and murmurs,

 

 

   “And... different,” and at least that means he's not the only one who can't help thinking that this is literally the first time they've ever had witnesses outside family to the two of them doing anything at all together, and it's definitely not making it any easier.

 

 

   “Maybe we should have found an empty bike-shed to do this behind,” he finds himself remarking, and then immediately seizes up so hard he gives himself a weird cramp along one side because he's holding his entire weight on one arse-cheek out of sheer bloody terror that she's about to throw her tea in his face and scream at him for making what is probably the least sensitive and tasteful comment on their whole situation _imaginable_ , but all she does is blink at him.

 

 

   “I didn't - I don't mean - I wasn't - ” he tries, but he has no idea where he's going with any of it because he has no idea how to salvage this, so he ends up sort of gaping at her pleadingly even though this is his shit to shovel and she's got no reason at all to bail him out -

 

 

   “Might have been easier,” she allows softly, looking down at her cup,

 

 

   “Privacy might have helped, but this'll have to do.”

 

 

   “I'm sorry,” he promises helplessly, leaning in over his arms and hanging his head so low he can't see her anymore, and then having to jerk up a bit because he's actually almost dipping what passes for his fringe into her tea - bloody narrow table -

 

 

   “I know,” she murmurs,

 

 

   “It's alright. This isn't easy,” and it strikes him that maybe for once, he needs to take control, so he sits up straight, clenches his hands, and takes a deep breath.

 

 

   “I never expected to see you,” he begins, because he's had this horror that she might think he somehow engineered their meeting since it happened, knowing that she knows he used to live somewhere else entirely, and she nods to indicate she understands.

 

 

   “Oh, I moved back,” she reveals, the awkwardness thick between them still even though arguably they're now sort of getting somewhere, and then she seems to decide to take a risk and adds,

 

 

   “I started therapy.”

 

 

   “Good,” he replies, for lack of anything more appropriate to say, trying not to feel like he's prying but needing to know when he asks,

 

 

   “Is it... helping?”

 

 

   “I think so, for the most part. I think a lot more of myself now,” she says, quiet but frank, and he nods and tries to smile.

 

 

   “Good!” he tells her, and he means it, he does, the idea that this wasn't always the case breaks his heart, but a little of that is also for the implication that what they shared - the reason she went for him - was _because_ she didn't think very highly of herself, and Rickon doesn't like what that says about him but he likes what it might say about the way she saw him, and _them_ , a lot less, and that part hurts.

 

 

   “Oh,” she says, and there's realisation there, and then she shakes her head and she moves her hand from the cup and briefly rests her little finger on the back of his hand and looks at him so sincerely he has to look back at her even though this is the first time she's touched any part of him skin-to-skin since his parents walked in on them and it's so _important_ that he not forget this and that he not fuck it up somehow, but her eyes hold him and she says,

 

 

   “Oh, no,” softly, softly,

 

 

   “I didn't mean - not _you_. I didn't think much of myself, before, but it's not why we happened. It's just why I went about it all wrong,” and she smiles like an apology and it's awful.

 

 

   “You didn't,” he insists, and he doesn't know if he's capable of being kind and stubborn all at the same time but for her, maybe _just_ for her, he can,

 

 

   “You didn't do anything wrong, Shireen.”

 

 

   “Perhaps not wrong, but... I wasn't as kind to you as I should have been, I don't think,” she says regretfully, and he shakes his head.

 

 

   “You were,” he states, emphatic and earnest and unwilling to let there be any two ways about this,

 

 

   “You definitely weren't _unkind_ to me.”

 

 

   “No,” she picks up at once, looking sad and cornered, and then worried,

 

 

   “Maybe not _un_ kind, but - ” and her fingers coax his open and twine their hands together and she continues hopefully as though this will get her point across,

 

 

   “I could have been kinder. And I wasn't, because I was too fixated on trying to escape my own misery, and that was wrong of me, and I'm sorry for it.”

 

 

   “You don't have to be,” Rickon promises her, and he takes a punt and claps her hand more firmly, trying for reassuring but desperate to get as much out of what is probably the last and only time he'll ever see her again just the two of them on purpose like this as possible, and he doesn't want her to regret any of it, any of their time together ever, or think that he ever could,

 

 

   “Really, Shireen. Not ever. It's not like any of us were in that place because we were all fine and dandy, you had reason to be preoccupied, and you didn't do anything wrong, okay? No one's ever been as kind to me as you.”

 

 

   “I'm sorry for that, too,” she tells him quietly, squeezing his fingers and then unfurling hers and withdrawing, and he lets her, but he won't let her dwell on the past like it was a mistake on her part, so he shakes his head again.

 

 

   “Don't be - I'm not,” he insists, and then changes tack as tactfully as he can, asking gently,

 

 

   “How are things now, though?”

 

 

   “Fine, mostly,” she nods, swallowing, like she can't quite believe it, like there are still tears behind it where she's cast her eyes down low,

 

 

   “The divorce went through, finally, but I'm not staying with either of them.”

 

 

   Rickon remembers all too well why Shireen was at Skagos - remembers her letting him spread her hair out over his pillow while she told him about the highly acrimonious divorce playing out between her parents who after years of marital difficulty stemming from her mother's childlessness bar Shireen herself had at last invited a sexual surrogate into their relationship and home at Shireen's mother's suggestion, and that this interloper had proven to be a gold-digging whore who eroded what was left of their marriage until they couldn't stand to be in the same room anymore.

 

 

   Rickon remembers holding Shireen while she cried silently and told him that she'd been sent away even before this third party was brought into matters as a last ditch attempt to salvage her parents' marriage which proved to be the final death knell instead, remembers her telling him that neither one of her parents had ever visited her or wanted her home for holidays, claiming it would be better if she didn't see them like that.

 

 

   He's glad she's not staying with them.

 

 

   “Is that what you wanted?” he asks her carefully, and is grateful when she nods.

 

 

   “It's better this way,” she says, voice low and scratchy, looking up at him again with eyes that sparkle for all the wrong reasons, shrugging,

 

 

   “I can't help them, and until they've sorted themselves out, they'll only hurt me. I'm happier this way.”

 

 

   “As long as it's what you want,” he tells her, and then with a concentrated attempt at hiding his bitterness and his insecurity,

 

 

   “So where are you staying, then? I assumed nearby, since I saw you in town.”

 

 

   “Yes - not far,” she confirms, nodding a little, a little less vulnerable for the change in topic,

 

 

   “With a friend and his family.”

 

 

   “That's what I thought,” Rickon replies, essentially repeating himself, stalling himself until the inevitable, the question he has to ask and doesn't want to because he can't bear the answer, but there's no use putting it off and he can't bring himself to sit here and be awkward with her or make her feel weird about this when it's not her fault, when he really does understand, so he forces himself to sound relatively normal and continue,

 

 

   “You know, when I saw you together. I hope it's working out okay.”

 

 

   “When did you see us together?” she asks, startled, frowning, and Rickon blinks.

 

 

   “At... Waitrose. In town,” he says slowly, now very concerned,

 

 

   “Remember? We were just talking about that,” and she stares at him with blank eyes and a furrowed forehead for a moment long enough to make him trail off because either she's developed some very serious short-term memory issues since last he spoke to her, or they're somehow talking at cross purposes, and he doesn't want to continue down this road until she's confirmed which it is, but she finally asks, as if trying to sort through it in her head,

 

 

   “So when you saw me with Sandor, and I left because of it,” and there's guilt there, but she presses on,

 

 

   “That's what you're referring to?”

 

 

   “Well, yes? I haven't seen you before or since,” he says honestly,

 

 

   “Isn't that who you meant, who you've been staying with?”

 

 

   “No, I - ” she begins, but suddenly it's like the careful hold he had on his inferiority complex and his pointless envy and his long-standing desperate _yearning_ for her just goes out the window and tosses his courtesies with them, because he finds himself unhappily, unnecessarily, interrupting to blurt out,

 

 

   “I mean, I get it - after what happened with my parents, I understand why you can't stand the sight of me, I wouldn't blame you if that put you off for life, to be honest - and I s'pose he can relate to you about things I never could, what with the scars and that, and I'd put money on him being able to break me in half easily if he took it into his head, I am _not_ blaming you for going that way - ”

 

 

   “Rickon - ” she utters, looking shocked, but he's not done and all the bollocks he's been trying to keep a lid on since everything went tits up between them because his _bastard_ parents just _had_ to come barging in where they weren't wanted or needed and get a nice eyeful of _her_ tits-up and him bollocks-deep just falls out of him like a half-digested kebab the morning after the night before and he can't shut up.

 

 

   “ - but I just - Shireen, I've _missed_ you every _bloody_ day since they took me back with them and buggered it all up, alright? I've missed you and I've felt so awful about how it ended and what they did to you, and I wanted - I wanted to see you and I wanted to talk to you about everything - about _anything_ , like we used to - but I didn't know how to do it because it felt wrong looking you up like some kind of stalker and I was so sure you'd never want to hear from me again after what happened because that was _so_ effed up, and then the way you reacted yesterday to seeing me - ” she inhales sharply, wet like her throat's clogged and she'd like to cry, he thinks, because it sounds a lot like his own voice right now, like a complete fucking _mess_ -

 

 

   “And I wouldn't - I _don't_ blame you, for finding someone else, someone totally different who won't - who's just _better_ than me - you deserve that, and I hope you're happy, I want you to be happy so much more than I want anything else, but I just don't know how to stop missing you and I don't know how to fix this so you can forgive me for how wrong everything went, so just tell me you're _happy_ and I'll be okay, alright? I'll be okay with whatever, as long as you're happy - so, so are you?”

 

 

   “Oh, Rickon,” Shireen murmurs, as if surprised, as if confused,

 

 

   “No, that's not - no, we're not.”

 

 

   “You're not - you're not what?” he tries to follow, but he's got no chance, the total no-hoper that he is, not if _Shireen_ looks like she's not sure what's happening, and honestly neither is he and he's the one who _got_ them here like an utter _tit_ because he can't keep his mouth shut, and -

 

 

   “Rickon, no - I couldn't,” she insists, perturbed, her nose wrinkled and her voice so soft, trembling but certain,

 

 

   “I _couldn't_ , not after what you said - what you were saying when we - ” and she interrupts herself and looks down as if she's embarrassed or not sure how to proceed and he hangs on her every word, her every breath, and then she regroups and carries on unhappily, her head tilted as if to acknowledge that she might be saying something ridiculous, but she isn't, she wouldn't, she _isn't_ ,

 

 

   “I know it was months ago, and I know it was all very much in the heat of the moment and all that, and I suppose you don't remember what you were saying, and it's not - I don't expect you were really _serious_ \- but - ”

 

 

   Rickon does remember.

 

 

   All of it. All of her. Everything that happened, they did, they said, he felt.

 

 

   _Everything_ he said, even when he said it wrong or it came out mangled by desire or devotion or even just a mouthful of her - he nearly swallowed some of her hair once because he was so focused on how bloody lovely she was he had to tell her, and choking and then having to _literally_ untangle his tongue was not his finest moment but what followed shortly after very nearly was and definitely ranks in his top five personal bests, he still feels, so really, that's not and never was an issue -

 

 

   The point is, he remembers.

 

 

   “ - you were saying that - um - ” and she's biting her lip as though she can't bear to repeat it for fear it really was just what it was, something he said because they were in bed, but it _wasn't_ and that's why he's been so devastated over not being able to get in touch with her and apologise for his parents' bloody obscene behaviour and beg her to overlook it and run away with him - or maybe just have a cuppa sometime or something and reconnect - and he can't just watch her struggle with that, so he tells her so.

 

 

   “I know what I said,” he says firmly, and she looks jarred for a moment and then nods and shrugs and replies in a small, apologetic voice,

 

 

   “Right, well then, you know why I couldn't just... forget and go off with someone else,” and she looks up at him with teary eyes and they're asking for him to understand and afraid he won't, afraid he'll ridicule her for all this, for not having moved on, and he hates that, but before he can say so, she finishes,

 

 

   “I couldn't do that after you told me you loved me...”

 

 

   Several times, he remembers.

 

 

   Whispered into her neck and her hair and kissed into her palms and gasped between them when she let him in and groaned as she wrapped her legs around him and _over_ and _over_ through clenched teeth and bitten lips and moaned with his head thrown back and his eyes unfocused and then promised deliriously, hoarse and looking down on her seconds before -

 

 

   The point is, he remembers. He remembers meaning every bloody word, feeling it so deeply it had nowhere to go but out so she could have it just like she could have the rest of him, and he looks at her and feels it now, still, and it's got nothing to do with opportunistic thrill-seeking or boredom or hormones or teenage rebellion or any other bloody thing. It never did.

 

 

   It was always all about her, and he's the one on the plate serving himself up, and he just hopes there's still something there she might want.

 

 

   “Really?” he asks her, and it's so simple, it's the only thing he needs to know, or it should be, but it's enough to make her slump in her seat and bow her head so much like when she left, and he's heard her tearful voice in the dark so many times she could be hiding under the table for all the good it'd do - he still knows she's crying when she nods like giving up and says,

 

 

   “I couldn't, after that, even if you never meant it - and I didn't want to believe it because if it was true then why didn't you try and find me again? And you didn't, so even if you _had_ meant it a little when we were - when we were together - I thought your parents must have talked you round, or you'd just realised you could do better out here in the real world - ”

 

 

   It's like hearing all his own fears and having all his own awful, insecure baggage dumped on him from a height, except it's coming from Shireen and it's inconceivable that she should ever have had reason to doubt that she is the entire reason the world goes round for him, that she can't have known that Rickon's only ever felt like he had a place when she's put him in it, but here she sits, tears falling into her lap, and she sounds like she's opened up his head and decided to read the whole list of bollocks that's been plaguing him about all this, all this time, and it makes no _sense_.

 

 

   “Shireen,” he mumbles, stunned, but it's like she can't hear him over the misery, and she just continues,

 

 

   “And I never blamed you for not trying to get in touch - I was sure that would be the last thing you needed what with your parents being so angry, and everything being so horrid and awkward - but what you said just wouldn't go away, even if it was just because of what we were doing, and I just thought - ”

 

 

   She shudders and looks up at him, and the bottom drops right out of his stomach because she looks like he _feels_ and that has to mean - has to mean -

 

 

   “I was so selfish and cold to you and we were just _trapped_ in that bloody place, but I thought - if you meant what you said even a _little_ bit, I couldn't just let that go, and - ”

 

 

   “Shireen,” he hears himself say as he makes a wild grab for her hands and nearly upsets her cup of tea in the process, dipping his sleeve in the slosh and immediately ignoring it so he can clutch at her icy fingers and lean in and hold them against his cheeks, kissing her thumb distractedly,

 

 

   “Shireen, it's okay, I know - I thought - I felt - I was sure you'd hate me and I was a coward for not coming for you the minute I was free but I thought you'd want rid of me after everything and I didn't think to hope you might miss me, too, and you weren't, you _weren't_ selfish, okay, you were just trapped, we were _both_ trapped and we made the best of it, but that doesn't mean there's anything better out _here_ \- I never bothered to look but I _know_ there isn't, there's no one better than you, that's why I love you, I always loved you, you're all there is - ”

 

 

   “But I was so - so - ” she protests, but her fingers hold on to his and stroke his face and he knows, and he tells her so,

 

 

   “You weren't, you never - you were direct and honest and brilliant and you always took me seriously and you gave a crap about everything I said even when I made bugger-all sense like just now, and I loved you for that, Shireen, and I still love you, there's no one like you and I should have told you before and I shouldn't have done it like that and I _definitely_ should have asked you to run away with me a _lot_ sooner, but I'm asking _now_ , okay? I'm asking now, Shireen, run away with me and sod the lot of them!”

 

 

   “Really?” she asks, and he doesn't think he's really smiled since before they were forced apart and he's really feeling it now because bloody hell his whole face smarts, but she swallows and she looks afraid and her voice is so small when she asks again,

 

 

   “Really? You really meant - you _really_ mean it?”

 

 

   “Yes,” he promises her, her fingers starting to warm up under his, and he pulls them down so he can tuck them under his collar where it's a bit warmer,

 

 

   “I love you. I love you and I've been a mess for missing you and I don't know what to do with myself without you - ”

 

 

   He's either already mostly there or she is because she barely drags at all before his mouth's on hers and that first kiss is everything but it's over before it's really begun so she can say,

 

 

   “Oh, I missed you,” and,

 

 

   “Rickon, please,” and this isn't a ' _Rickon, please_ ' he knows either, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know how to respond.

 

 

   Which is, with everything in him and then some.

 

 

   Time stops mattering in the same minute it started mattering again, and it's all so beside the point because Shireen is in his arms and it's all that's worth counting and holding on to, the only thing in his head anymore, the first time he's felt as free as he is since he was brought back from Skagos, and it's funny, that's the funniest thing ever, but he can't laugh because he's finally using his mouth for the only one of two things really worth doing with it, and both of them involve Shireen.

 

 

   If he could just hold her forever, that'd be it, he can't think of a single other thing worth striving for - there might be some difficulties involved but he's reasonably intelligent and she's Shireen so between them he's sure they could work something out and sort it - they can always just stop eating and start showering together instead of separately, that'd be an idea, they've never done that before - he's never even seen her all wet like that -

 

 

   Well, he's seen her _wet_ , obviously, and it bloody pissed it down most of the time at Skagos so he's obviously seen that, too, but it occurs to him full-throttle that those sodding communal showers they used to be subject to there, separate just like the boys' and girls' wings, never made it possible for the two of them to clean up together, it was always her sneaking into his room and then sneaking off again later - he never even saw the inside of her room and he's been sort of casually curious as to her taste in decorating ever since because he just knows it's consistent with the rest of her and he badly wants to see what that equates to in terms of soft furnishings and the like - so that is right up there on the list of things they never got to do and should really get around to -

 

 

   He's not just holding her, though, is the thing, they are actively snogging, and he's so bloody ecstatic about it that he realises perhaps a bit late that she's hauled him across the table to get at him better and he's awkwardly accommodated that just like he'll gladly accommodate each and every one of her wishes whenever, wherever, but the upshot is that they're essentially mostly lying on the table that was once between them and since he's no liar he'll admit that they are essentially groping one another in a way he'd loosely categorise as purposefully inappropriate for the workplace, so he doesn't really blame the girl behind the counter for throwing a moist dishtowel at them and yelling,

 

 

   “ _Oi!_ No bonking on the table - shite it's not even twelve yet give us a fuckin' break!”

 

 

   “Literally,” groans the slouching spotty one wiping down the next table over who adds his dishtowel to the mix, and it is the second towel landing square on Rickon's head and smelling of old socks and industrial strength cleaner which sort of alerts both he and Shireen to the fact that they've chosen the venue for this joyous occasion poorly, but honestly, who gives a shit?

 

 

   He gives slightly more of one than none at all when the dishtowels are swiftly followed by actual chivvying with a broom, but when Shireen takes his hand and they run outside together they're both laughing fit to burst, so it doesn't matter that they've made complete tits of themselves in public, all that matters is this, and how easily she spins back into his arms and lets him kiss her until she must be at least half as silly as him, because one or both of them can't stop giggling, but even despite that Rickon knows in his heart that if she backed him right up against his bike and unzipped him, he'd let her even though the indecent exposure would be much less indecent in pretty short order, he's that far gone on her.

 

 

   She does back him up against his bike, unless he pulls her along, but that's not important.

 

 

   What's important is how she laughs when she pushes her fingers through his hair and mumbles,

 

 

   “Fancy a shag?” against his besotted grin, and she is essentially on top of him so she knows the answer is hell yes, but he reins himself in just enough to push his own fingers through her hair and just look at her for a minute, how real she is, and he's only got one answer that fits.

 

 

   “I fancy you, Shireen,” he tells her, and it's all the blind, stark, loyal devotion he's felt all along, and then everything's a sort of headlong rush, getting her into his helmet and behind him and his bike starting on the first go, and then they're off, and he's not even sure where he's taking her until he remembers he's got nowhere else to go right now other than back to Arya and Gendry's, but he doesn't actually think the destination matters to either of them, and with Shireen's arms around him trivial things like that just fade into background noise anyway, and with the thought she holds him tighter like she felt him doubting, and it's all he needs to let go of all that and just go with it.

 

 

   They nearly get squashed between a white van man and some knobhead on the phone thinking he can pull out and switch lanes over a double line in his dinky little Porsche who definitely didn't look before doing, and it fills Rickon with such an indescribable rage that some inattentive gobshite would carelessly endanger a motorcyclist with Shireen for a pillion that the feeling is practically euphoric and he wishes he could be reckless enough to take his hand off the bars and gesture rudely to convey his thoughts on the matter as they pass, but even as he's thinking it might be worth it, turning his head he can see Shireen dragging the side of her boot with all its buckles along the doors and shooting the bastard a two-fingered salute, and then he just wishes he could park right here and have her on the hood of the sodding thing because he's never been more in love with her.

 

 

   It's not far back home, and they both sort of tumble off the bike like they've forgotten how their own legs work, but his helmet ends up in the mud and his hands end up on her arse as they stumble towards the front door, and then there's a tense few moments where they almost both silently agree to give up trying to search his pockets for the house keys because Rickon semi-accidentally pushes her against the door and her leg sort of just ends up around his waist of its own doing and the street's fairly quiet this time of day, but then someone walks past the house with a dog in a rain mac and a soggy hat and exclaims,

 

 

   “Shameless!” and Shireen tilts her head back to laugh just long enough that Rickon manages to both find and use the key, and then they basically fall into the hallway, and Shireen kicks the door shut, and they actually get as far as the kitchen table before Rickon gets his hands under her skirt and realises only after he's clearly wrecked them that she's wearing,

 

 

   “ _Tights?_ ” and the look on her face as he gawks at her wordlessly - because he doesn't know the right phrase for ' _that's bloody inconvenient that is_ ' when the inconvenience lies in slightly more effort than he was bargaining for being required in order to undress her enough that they can feasibly shag as soon as possible - is beautiful, and she laughs like she hasn't had this much fun in years, and tells him,

 

 

   “Sandor promised to pick me up on his bike if I called and asked him to, so I wore tights so I wouldn't end up flashing my knickers at everyone on the way,” and Rickon picks at the ladders he's made in them and lets the flimsy stuff snap back on to her thighs one hole at a time as he tries to remove the envious whine from his question,

 

 

   “Who is he then, if he's not your bit of alright?”

 

 

   “If you must know, he's my assigned therapy partner,” Shireen explains patiently, adjusting her legs around his waist and twirling individual curls at the nape of his neck around her fingers, making him shiver and press against her with his mouth open because he's easy and she's everything,

 

 

   “The session leader thought we might have enough in common to be able to get along with each other, since we don't get along with anyone else.”

 

 

   “You get along with me,” Rickon says thickly, letting his head fall forward to lean against her temple as she pulls gently on his hair and he slips his fingers into the holes in her tights and feels how chilly her legs are, and she makes a soft sound and murmurs,

 

 

   “You weren't there.”

 

 

   “I'm here now,” he says, like she needs telling when he can feel her all over and it's still not enough, and she kisses him and runs her tongue along the inside of his upper lip where he's been biting it out of nerves, and then she pulls back a bit and just looks at him.

 

 

   “I missed you,” she repeats, serious and sad, and Rickon holds her tightly and keeps his eyes on hers and promises,

 

 

   “I missed you, too. I'm not leaving you again.”

 

 

   “I do love you, Rickon,” she says softly, like she needs to convince him and she's worried he won't believe her, moving her hands to grip his curls either side of his head and hold him in place while she searches his eyes for something, and he lets her, because he knows whatever it is, she'll find it eventually.

 

 

   “I love you, Shireen,” he replies, and she breathes deeply, but she still looks scared when she promises,

 

 

   “I always did, Rickon - I was just afraid you couldn't love me back, so I kept it to myself, and I'm sorry.”

 

 

   “Don't be sorry,” he murmurs, disregarding the sting of his scalp when he tips his head against the hold she has on his hair and brushes a kiss over her cheek,

 

 

   “Just be here...”

 

 

   “I am,” she insists, raking her fingers back through his curls and somehow managing to avoid snarls and tangles, finally resting her hands at the back of his neck again, and pulling herself closer,

 

 

   “And I'm not going anywhere either.”

 

 

   Her tights are no match for a Rickon who knows tomorrow's going to matter, who knows Shireen loves him, but the kitchen table is apparently not so sturdy, possibly due to Rickon's own thoughtlessly rough treatment of it, and it fairly quickly protests proceedings with some pretty unpleasant screeching, which just has Shireen and Rickon laughing themselves sick all the way up the stairs where Rickon tosses Shireen onto his bed amidst the wreckage of last night, and as he's pulling the sad remains of her tights down her legs she's curling her fingers into his duvet and asking,

 

 

   “Why's it damp?”

 

 

   “Spent most of yesterday in a tree after Gendry said he saw you and everything got a bit much,” he admits, no reason to keep anything from her, and she widens her eyes and then pushes the duvet away, revealing -

 

 

   “Are those my arm-warmers?”

 

 

   “Been meaning to return them,” Rickon promises, taking off his shirt,

 

 

   “Got them a bit manky yesterday though - they need a wash.”

 

 

   “Never mind,” she says, letting them fall along with her bra,

 

 

   “Come here...”

 

 

   No one else in the world could ever give him an order he'd be willing to obey, let alone that quickly, but he makes up for it.

 

 

   He makes up for it over and over until they fall asleep, and the sound of Gendry coming home and using the loo wakes them up, the flush mingling in an oddly musical way with the rain banging at the window and on the roof, and Rickon looks down at Shireen's smiling, blue-cast face in the dim light and murmurs,

 

 

   “He probably knows...”

 

 

   “I don't mind,” she whispers, serious and teasing all at once,

 

 

   “I suppose he'll have time to get used to it, before we run away together for good,” and Rickon has to kiss her, has to gather her up and love her all over, and while he's making his way down her neck, she breathes,

 

 

   “Listen...” and he does, and then he grins right along with her, and waits for it.

 

 

   “ _Here comes the rain_ ,” she sings along softly with the radio he always forgets to turn off because he needs something that isn't the noise in his head, and soft rock from the seventies through eighties is the closest thing public stations can give him to the soundtrack of the woman he loves and who loves him, he now knows,

 

 

   “ _Here comes the rain -_ ”

 

 

   “ _Here she comes again,_ ” he takes over, making her laugh under his hands travelling up her sides as he lays a kiss over her heart,

 

 

   “ _Here comes the rain..._ ”

 

 

   “Rickon,” she sighs,

 

 

   “Please...”

 

 

   He knows this one, alright.

 

 

   “ _I've been waiting for her, for so long,_ ” he intones, licking along her ribcage and listening to her gasp and giggle,

 

 

   “ _I love the rain..._ ”

 

 

   -

 

 

  


End file.
